Twitter to stop running political ads worldwide

NEW YORK: In response to growing criticism over misinformation from politicians on social media, Twitter on Wednesday said that it would stop all political advertising globally on its platform.

Jack Dorsey, chief executive of micro-blogging site, said in a tweet that the company took the action to head off potential problems from "machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes."

The move comes with Facebook under pressure to apply fact-checking to politicians running ads with debunked claims.